In the manufacture of corrugated cardboard, "single face" material comprising a fluted web combined with a single backing web is formed at a "wet end" of a production line. At a "dry end" of the production line, a second backing of web material is applied to the fluted web of the single face. The resulting corrugated cardboard comprises the fluted web of the single face material adhered between the single face backing and the second backing applied at the dry end.
Recent advances in "dry end" equipment have dramatically increased the speed and efficiency of dry end production. Despite these advances, however, production is still encumbered by inefficiencies in the "wet end" equipment. In particular, in order to change or replenish the supply of single face web material, the entire production line must be shut down while new material is manually installed into the system. Typically, material from one single face supply machine is manually removed from the system, and material from a second, adjacent single face supply machine is manually fed into the system. Once the second single face supply is installed, the entire line must be slowly accelerated to the steady state speed of production. Obviously, this time consuming process results in significant losses in production capacity, and eliminates the possibility of making efficient changes from one single face material type to another. Accordingly, there is a long felt need in the art for a single face splicing apparatus capable of automatically splicing single face web material to effect single face supply changes/replenishment without interrupting production.